Employees (N = 194) from a wide variety of organizations participated in this study aimed at describing the attitudes of individuals who refuse to respond to an employee survey request (noncompliants). Noncompliants, in comparison with those individuals who would comply with the survey request, possessed greater intentions to quit, less organizational commitment, and less satisfaction toward supervisors and their own jobs. Noncompliants also possessed more negative beliefs regarding how their organization handles employee survey data (e.g., does not act on survey data). No significant differences were found for work-related demographic variables, satisfaction with pay, and satisfaction with promotion opportunities. Implications for survey research are discussed along with methods to address nonresponse and noncmpliance.

In this field study (N = 405) population profiling was introduced to examine general and specific classes of nonresponse (active vs. passive) to a satisfaction survey. The active nonrespondent group (i.e., purposeful nonresponders) was relatively small (approximately 15%). Active nonrespondents, in comparison with respondents, were less satisfied with the entity sponsoring the survey and were less conscientious. Passive nonrespondents (e.g., forgot), who represented the majority of nonrespondents, were attitudinally similar to respondents but differed with regard to personality. Nonresponse bias does not appear to be a substantive concern for satisfaction type variables--the typical core of an organizational survey. If the survey concerns topics strongly related to Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, the respondent sample may not be representative of the population.

Organizational workforces are becoming increasingly dispersed. To facilitate communications among individuals or groups of people located in a number of different locations, teleconferencing technologies, such as audioconferencing, have been developed. The authors examined whether a structural group intervention, the stepladder technique, can facilitate the task performance of 4-person groups (n = 52) when using audioconferencing. Consistent with research conducted on face-to-face groups, the stepladder technique was found to facilitate the decision-making performance of groups interacting via audioconference. The authors postulated that certain structural elements of the stepladder technique compensate for obstacles inherent in nonvisual communications. Supplementary analyses examined best member influence and the existence of order of entry effects into the stepladder process.

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